February 3, 2010

iMuslims Reforming Islam Online

Leave a Comment / Opinion / Mona Eltahawy

You’ve seen their mugshots: a Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day; five young American Muslims detained in Pakistan, apparently desperately seeking jihad.

You’ve heard they used the video-sharing site YouTube in search of Muslim militant groups fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan or to find “Internet imams” spewing hate. Already we’re hearing dire warnings that radical groups are recruiting every Muslim within a foot of an Internet connection.

I bet you haven’t heard of these mugshots: Iranian men in chadors and headscarves.

As part of the “Men in Headscarves” campaign, Iranian men — inside and outside Iran — have been posting pictures of themselves wearing the head and body coverings the Iranian regime imposes on women. Their pictures — one was even taken in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris — have spread on the social networking site Facebook and YouTube in support of Iranian student activist Majid Tavakoli.

Authorities arrested Tavakoli in December after he called for more democracy and urged his fellow students to reject “tyranny.” The next day, government newspapers published pictures of Tavakoli dressed in a chador and claimed he had tried to escape arrest disguised as a woman. The Iranian regime was trying to humiliate him but the “Men in Headscarves” had the last laugh.

Like everybody else who uses the Internet, Muslims shop online and post embarrassing pictures of themselves on Facebook. Undoubtedly, violent radical groups such as al-Qaeda and others have used the Internet to their advantage. That is not new, as U.S.-based monitoring groups who follow such sites will tell you.

But what is new is how young people have been using the Internet to challenge authority (political, social as well as religious) in Muslim-majority countries or where Muslims live as minorities. The attempt to humiliate Tavakoli backfired as dozens not only rushed to his defense but used their pictures in headscarves and chadors to criticize the dress code Iran imposes on women.

I research and teach graduate-level courses on the impact of blogging and social media on mainstream media and society in the Middle East. Such new media offer unprecedented platforms for self-expression. Harvard University’s Berkman Centre for Internet and Society estimates there are 60,000 to 100,000 blogs in Iran and around 45,000 in the Arab world.

My students have interviewed bloggers and online activists whose exciting work is invariably overshadowed by news of angry, young Muslims online.

Do you know of the Egyptian blogger who helped convict police officers for the sodomy of a bus driver by posting footage of the crime on YouTube? How about the Saudi woman blogger who challenges her country’s restrictions on women (she is married to a former officer of the morality police, who often enforce those restrictions)? Or the lesbian blogger who runs a support site for lesbian and bisexual women and the transgendered in Lebanon? And have you heard of the young Bahraini activist and blogger who champions the rights of migrant workers in a region where they are largely invisible?

Pick up Gary Bunt’s “iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam” (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) and learn that for every online al-Qaeda recruiter there are thousands more Muslims reforming Islam online. In recognition of the power of the Internet, religious institutions such as Sunni Islam’s Al-Azhar in Egypt and Shiite Islam’s schools in Qom, Iran, have Web sites. Interpretations and commentaries on the Quran fill the Internet and recreate the vibrant intellectual atmosphere that many Muslims lament we’d long ago lost.

Bunt says many Muslims identify more with a Web site than with a mosque or a particular sect. I know exactly what he’s talking about. The majority of American Muslims don’t go to mosque. Soon after I moved to the United States from Egypt, I found my community through the now defunct Web site MuslimWakeUp.com, which became a virtual home for liberal and progressive American Muslims. The site inspired progressive Muslim meetups in several cities across the country and new groups such as Muslims for Progressive Values.

Remember, it was the father of Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who warned the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that he feared his son was turning to extremism, and it was the families of those young American Muslim men arrested in Pakistan as well as an American Muslim civil liberties group that alerted the FBI to those young men’s disappearance.

Not every Muslim online is learning how to make bombs or looking for jihad. If anything, by loosening the chains of authority the Internet deals a blow to radical violence: it gives anyone online the chance to answer back. For every Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, there are dozens of Iranian men taunting the regime at the helm of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Join me and the rest of my “friends” — I have almost 5,000 — on Facebook as we argue over polygamy, burqas and being gay and Muslim. Every day I avidly follow several threads of comments running on my Facebook Wall, all showing a diversity of opinions you rarely see in news reports on Muslims: Just today, several Pakistanis from around the world responded to an article I posted in which I cursed the Taliban for the bloodletting they’ve unleashed on Pakistan.

Or follow me on Twitter, where an American Muslim I follow summed up the sentiments of many toward the five young American Muslim men from Virginia: “I say we welcome these kids home from Pakistan with a swift kick in the ass. Who’s with me?”

Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-born columnist and public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues. Reprinted with permission.

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Filming Jewish

If you can tell a lot about a society by what it likes to watch, then something quite interesting must be happening in Israel, where one of the top-rated television shows is called “Srugim.” The show is an Israeli twist on the American hit “Friends,” and it follows the daily dramas of a group of single Jews living in modern-day Israel.

But here’s the twist: These hip young singles are religious. Not the black-hat type of religious, but still devout Orthodox Jews who spend their Saturdays in houses of worship rather than in malls or at soccer stadiums.

In a country where the secular often look down on the religious, how could such a show be so popular?

I got part of an answer the other day when I went to visit my friend and Hollywood film producer, Tom Barad, at his offices on Beverly Drive. Barad is chairing the premiere, on Feb. 11, of a one-week film festival from The Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts in Jerusalem, and since I’m a big fan of their films, he asked me to get involved.

Barad has reached out to an eclectic mix of Hollywood Jews, many of whom are Torah-observant, to help him attract an audience to the Feb. 11 premiere and to the festival — names like David Sacks, Michael Borkow, Mia Goldman, Dan Adler, Jeff Astroff and one of the “Shrek 2” writers himself, David Weiss.

It could be that he’s pulling out all the stops because of the unusual nature of the Ma’aleh films. You see, there are no steamy sex scenes, no blood and gore, no trucks getting blown up, no Jews killing Arabs or Arabs killing Jews and no cheap shots against Judaism or Israel. In fact, you’re likely to walk out of these films feeling better, or at least deeper, about your Jewish identity.

I guess you’d expect that from a school that describes itself as “an institution of higher education which trains filmmakers to produce work inspired by their Jewish heritage, fostering a unique connection between the world of media and Jewish culture. The school aims to build bridges between Jewish tradition and social experience, as well as between the religious and secular worlds.”

In other words, they make really Jewish films.

But I can see how using cinema for a cause like “building bridges” might smell fishy. When people go to the movies, the last thing they want to see is an agenda, especially a pious agenda. Most moviegoers want to be entertained, not sermonized. And let’s face it, when you see words like “Jewish heritage” and “Jewish tradition,” you’re thinking synagogue or JCC, not the Cineplex.

Maybe that’s why the films of Ma’aleh are so noteworthy — it’s their degree of difficulty. It’s a lot harder to entertain an audience when you’re working within certain boundaries.

However, these boundaries — whether of decency, modesty or good taste — can also be a blessing in disguise, by forcing filmmakers to put a greater emphasis on character and drama. One of the best-known examples of this in recent years is “Ushpizin” — a highly entertaining film about ultra-Orthodox Jews in their tight-knit Jerusalem neighborhood during the holiday of Sukkot. The film worked not because it promoted a pious message of religious hospitality — although it certainly did that — but because the characters, plot and dialogue are utterly engrossing.

The students at Ma’aleh, which was founded in 1989 and is run by a woman named Neta Ariel, don’t create feature-length films like “Ushpizin”; their films are short-form, anything from 15-minute dramas and comedies to 60-minute documentaries. But all their films explore issues of Jewish and Israeli identity — whether dealing with sensitive subjects like religious divorce, homosexuality or the trauma of memory, to any of the societal, family or inner conflicts that arise when trying to live a traditional life in a modern Jewish state.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, then, when Barad told me that the creative force behind the hit television show “Srugim,” Eliezer Shapira, is a graduate of Ma’aleh. Before reaching national prominence, Shapira produced some award-winning documentaries at Ma’aleh, including “Saving Private Finkelstein,” “Eicha” and a festival favorite, “The Last Scene,” which tells the story of an elderly woman trying to transform an image of sisterly loss that has haunted her for 70 years.

The organizers of the festival, which will have its premiere at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills and hold screenings at 10 different synagogues and schools throughout Los Angeles, hope to spawn many more success stories like that of Shapira. They don’t hide the fact that their films, just like the show “Srugim,” have a mission: to humanize traditional Jews, elevate the notions of Jewish and Israeli identity and foster greater understanding between the religious and nonreligious communities.

Over the past few years, a growing demand for their films has come from Jewish schools around the world, which have found that the films are very popular with students as a way of engaging them about their Jewish identity.

Apparently, these students have something in common with the millions of Israelis who watch “Srugim,” and pretty much anybody who watches television these days — they don’t mind listening to a serious message, as long as it’s got lots of drama and it’s fun to watch.

David Suissa is the founder of OLAM magazine and OLAM.org. You can read his daily blog at suissablog.com and e-mail him at {encode=”dsuissa@olam.org” title=”dsuissa@olam.org”}.

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Gold, Successor Sandler, on Board With Changes

Leave a Comment / Community, Cover Story / Julie Gruenbaum Fax

When Stanley Gold became chairman of Federation two years ago, he had one main goal: to make it relevant.

So, now that he has turned over the gavel to Richard Sandler, the new chairman, has he done it?

“I think we took a big step toward relevance, but there is always unfinished business,” Gold said in December during an interview at his Burbank office at Shamrock Holdings, an investment company owned by the family of Roy Disney, where he is CEO.

Most agree that Gold gave Federation the shakeup it was looking for when it tapped a chairman who was not a Federation insider and was known as a fearless corporate player.

Gold slashed the board from 143 members to 45. He reorganized Federation into five funding areas that allocate money based on programming proposals, not on year-to-year entitlements. He started to scale back rent subsidies and eliminate other benefits, but those plans were put on hold when the recession hit.

Gold believes he ignited a needed conversation.

“We need to be willing to have self-analysis. We’re now questioning, at committee levels, everything we do, which is healthy. The problem I think in the past was we accepted things because that was the way it was always done, and that is no longer standard operating procedure for us,” Gold said.

What Gold called the “emancipation” of the agencies — revamping funding procedures and eliminating subsidies — alarmed many organizations, but Gold is confident he moved things in the right direction.

“Emancipate does not mean abandon,” Gold said. “We’re not abandoning anybody. We’re trying to make agencies healthier so they can stand on their own, which gives us an opportunity to incubate and grow other organizations that have wide appeal to other segments of our population.”

Some agencies say while they have not yet seen significant change in the dollars they receive, the reduction of subsidies for rent, payroll, insurance and benefits has been significant. Margy Feldman, director of Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles, says she supports the idea of helping agencies become more robust, but communication has been lacking.

“It would have been helpful to work together in how the reduction would impact each agency; for example, some agencies might want it all in a one-month hit, where others might be better off doing it monthly,” Feldman said. “Typically there is no discussion, just the ‘hit.’”

Jewish Family Service, which rented a floor and a half at Federation headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard, is moving this month to a smaller space on Wilshire near Normandie.

“One of the things that prompted this decision was discussion within Federation about increasing the rent and reducing subsidies for agencies in the building,” said Paul Castro, CEO of Jewish Family Service, which received about $2.7 million of its $27 million budget from Federation in 2009. But, he said, “This move was a business decision. This was not a statement about our relationship with Federation.”

The move will save JFS about $1.5 million over five years. Administrative offices will be in the new, consolidated office space, while client services will continue to be offered at 16 locations around the city.

Gold said he is not worried about filling the vacancy. StandWithUs, the Israel advocacy organization, confirmed that it is moving into the Federation building, taking half a floor. And Federation’s new president, Jay Sanderson, is hoping to use some of the space as an incubation area for start-ups and small organizations.

Gold likes the notion of bringing fresh ideas into the building. During his tenure, he worked to involve young people in leadership training and says a good 40 percent of the board is now younger than 50 (young by Federation measures).

“There is a whole group of people who are not only givers to Federation, they are activists — they run committees, they have responsibilities,” Gold said.

He’s also brought in some members of the Iranian Jewish population and made inroads with Israelis.

“The Federation needs to be more open and less an exclusive club. It needs to reach out to all of the diverse elements of the community, and I’m convinced that cannot happen if both lay leaders and professional staff stay at 6505 and say, ‘Come to us,’” Gold said.

But some things were left undone, in part because focus had to shift toward handling the immediate economic crisis.

Gold said he would have liked to have spent more time reevaluating the relationship between Federation and the Jewish Community Foundation, which dispersed $65 million to local and international causes in 2008. The Foundation, with assets of $690 million, runs as a completely separate entity from Federation.

“It is not healthy that they be operated independently,” Gold said. “There is a duplication of efforts on the revenue generating side, and there is a duplication of efforts on the giving side. We need to work much closer, hand-in-glove.”

But Marvin Schotland, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Foundation, and Lorin Fife, its chairman, said they believe the community is best served by two independent organizations.

“It’s important to have an organization that is not subject to the vicissitudes of a year-to-year campaign that come to bear on Federation, that can result in worrying about what the numbers will look like in December, rather than what the community is going to look like 10 years down the road,” Fife said.

Leaders of The Federation and Foundation sit on one another’s boards and collaborate constantly, Schotland said, a process that will only get better with Sanderson, since the Foundation has been a consistent funder of the Jewish Television Network (JTN), which Sanderson headed for 20 years before he came to Federation.

Federation’s new chairman, Richard Sandler, was also a funder of JTN through the Milken Family Foundation, where he is executive director.

Sandler grew up in an active Federation family in the Valley — his father was also a founder of Valley Beth Shalom — but he was only marginally involved with Federation until he was invited to come aboard as a partner and potential successor to Gold. Like Gold, Sandler is dedicated to making community organizations more independent, with Federation filling in gaps where necessary, playing the role of convener and serving as a central address during crises.

“I think Federation needs to be a partner in the community,” Sandler said. “It shouldn’t be looked upon as more or less important than other organizations.”

Sandler and his wife live in Brentwood and are still leaders at VBS. They have three grown children, who are also Jewish and civic activists.

Sandler says education and identity building are vital for this generation of Jews, where intermarriage rates are at about 45 percent and some studies show that families are likely to lose any sense of Jewish identity by the second generation after intermarriage.

“It’s important that if a young person is going to make a decision in their life that in effect Judaism is not important to them, that they should have an idea of what that means. They should understand, what are Jewish values? What have we contributed to the world? Why have we existed against all odds through the generations?” he said.

Sandler would like to see a fundraising model that uses a personal approach to help people understand exactly what their money is doing.

“I want to bring in new donors, significant philanthropists in the city that are Jewish that don’t give anything to Jewish causes,” he said. “I want to be able to go to them and make them understand why it would be in their interest to do so.”

And he’d like to see established lay leaders better understand their role in relation to professionals.

“I want professionals to feel empowered,” Sandler said. “If you’re going to make the most of your human capital, you have got to let them use their talents in the best way they know how. And you’ve got to assume that someone doing something every day has more knowledge about what they are doing than someone who goes to a meeting once a month or once a week.”

But, Gold warns, while the work is rewarding, Sandler should be prepared to put in a lot of hours.

“I will tell you, I’ve spent more time in two years as chairman of Federation than I did in six years as chairman of USC. That is literally true,” Gold said.

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Can Jay Sanderson Transform L.A. Jewish Life? [VIDEO]

Leave a Comment / Community, Cover Story / Julie Gruenbaum Fax

About 30 minutes into the question-and-answer portion of the public’s first chance to grill Jay Sanderson, he started singing.

It was just weeks before Sanderson took over as president of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles on Jan. 4. After fielding about a half-dozen questions about the state of L.A. Jewry, Sanderson looked out at the 200 community leaders, rabbis and activists gathered at the Luxe Hotel in Bel Air and quipped, “I guess we’re at a place right now, and I have to recognize that, where there may be some negativity around Federation, based on these irrelevancy questions and alienation questions.”

Then he started to sing “It’s a New Day,” the song Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am composed for President Obama’s victory. It was a glimpse into Sanderson’s hopes for transforming Federation and a sign of his unrestrained way of communicating.

“It’s a new day,” the 52-year-old Sanderson said. “I think if we do the kind of work that I want to be doing, and if we throw the doors open at [Federation headquarters at] 6505 Wilshire and in the West Valley, people are going to see a different day.

“I look around this room, and I see some of the most exciting Jewish leaders in the community here,” he continued. “I see a wealth of talent and passion in this community, but many of you probably feel like you haven’t been engaged in the Federation world. I am going to change that.”

It’s a big promise coming from a man brand-new to the field.

Sanderson is taking over an institution with a $50 million annual budget that funds more than 100 initiatives and programs in Los Angeles and around the world, and creates some of its own programming as well.

Jay Sanderson fields questions from community leaders